The Cottoneyes, Lee-Scotts, and Heckings 7
An Emotional Experience by Hank Cottoneye
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
I like to think of myself as a pretty brave guy. Like when my little brother was scared of the monster under his bed, I was the first person he turned to. But the other night something happened that scared the whatchamacallit out of me.
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
You don't expect an underground bunker to shake. You figure it'll be impervious to things like sonic booms and heavy machinery going by. So when the walls in our house started moving back and forth, I was like, "Whoa, dude, what the --?" I figured it was an earthquake.
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
But then I went upstairs and outside and saw smoke coming up out of a small fissure.
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
And then I saw the lava bomb.
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
It was just me and Dale at home because Mom was at work and Dad was off fishing. So as soon as Dad came home I told him what had happened. "We've got to move," I said, and I expected him to agree with me. "Not so fast," he said. "This is a good spot -- no close neighbors, no tree roots dangling through the ceilings. But don't say anything about this to your mother; she might get nervous."
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
Dad is a colonel in the military, so he's not someone you want to disobey. But he's also paranoid, so you'd expect him to freak out about a volcano. On the other hand, he's erratic, so you can't expect him to behave like a normal person.
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
First thing the next morning, he went out and chipped away at the lava bomb. "I got an emerald, a quartz, and a citrine," he told me. "But you have to wait until they cool off and turn black. Otherwise you might get burnt." Really?
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
That night I couldn't help wondering what would happen if we had a fissure open up in the middle of the living room. Would the carpet burn? Would we all be asphyxiated by the smoke from the burning polymers? Mom asked me what was wrong, and I had to pretend to be upset about the movie we were watching. She gave me kind of a strange look and said, "You do remember that the dog makes it home safe at the end, don't you?" So I had to mumble something about the mummy always scaring me, which made me sound like a total loser.
So, I don't know. Am I a wimp for wanting to move? I'll tell you one thing, though. The next time one of those snobby kids from San Myshuno moans about earthquakes, I'm going to say, "Well, at least you're not on top of a volcano."
Hank got a B+
The Most Important Thing by Faith Lee-Scott
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
Working on this assignment was really hard for me because I kept thinking of one thing, then another, as being the most important. It seems to me like everything is important. I was going to say that getting an education was important...
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
...But then Mom took me with her to the gym. Running on the treadmill was hard. I realized that I was not in good shape and that I needed to work on developing my fitness. So maybe I'd say that exercising was the most important thing...
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
...Except that then I stepped off the treadmill and found myself face to face with the coolest guy from school. I'm not the only one who has a crush on him, but I know it's hopeless because we're both dynasty heirs so I couldn't marry him anyway, and if he was my one true love, I would just be miserable. And all I could think was that I didn't have any make-up on and I probably looked terrible. Maybe terrible enough so he wouldn't recognize me? But then he said, "Hi, Faith." So, yeah, he saw me without my make-up, but he knew my name, so he's not totally oblivious to my existence, and that's a good thing, right?
Anyway, maybe love is the most important thing.
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
I'm really a lot better with pictures than I am with words, so here's my representation of the most important thing -- a life that includes everything.
Faith got a C, with a note from the teacher: A picture might be worth 1000 words, but for writing class, you need the words.
What's Most Important by Grant Hecking
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
The first thing I have to say is that I'm totally comfortable with having Dad and Pop as my parents, with their love for each other, and with their love for me.
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
Pop is always ready to help me fine-tune my exercise routine, and I can only hope that some day I'll have a physique like his.
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
Dad is the family breadwinner and bread baker, and my go-to guy for homework assistance except for math. Neither he nor Pop is good at math, so I've had to learn algebra myself.
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
Having said all that, the most important thing for me is finding out my true identity. I'm not really interested in the two people who supplied my genetic composition. What I want to know is what I am. When I was a child, I thought I might be a wizard like in the Henry Puffer books, but I eventually discovered that wizards didn't exist.
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
When I became a teen, I thought I might be a vampire, but a few hours' research was enough to scratch that notion. I didn't have fangs and tbh, I prefer my steak well-done. But although I knew I wasn't a wizard or vampire -- and certainly not a native of Sixam -- I still felt that I was different from everyone else. Was I a merman? I could take a bath without anything happening to my legs, but that didn't prove much. And we didn't have a swimming pool because summer tends to be short and chilly here in Brindleton Bay.
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
When I found out we'd be going to Sulani for a day or two, I got really excited. Maybe I would meet other merpeople, and they would teach me all the arcane secrets of mermanship.
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
But even in the ocean, my legs remained solidly, separately, leglike. I wasn't a merman. Maybe what Dad said was true, and many teens feel like they're different -- even the ones who live with their birth parents. And maybe Pop was right when he said that being attracted to girls rather than guys -- which was absolutely okay with him -- was enough to make me feel like I didn't really belong, even though, as far as he was concerned, I certainly did.
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
And then one day our dog Rosie died. I grieved for her, of course, but I also felt that Rosie might have been useful to me in a way that I didn't understand. And when there was a flash of light when the Reaper took her soul, I felt like I'd seen something that I recognized. I even asked him if I might be the offspring of him or someone like him. "You're not my kid," was all he would say.
I guess I'll always be curious about my identity, but in the meantime, Dad says I should concentrate on school and scouting. And Pop says that he and Dad will always be there for me and if I want to try and track down my birth parents, that's fine with them. Maybe when I stop being a teen, I'll have a better understanding of who and what I am. I do plan to change my first name to something with a few more syllables. I don't know why -- Radagast has always sounded like a cool name to me and so does Paracelsus.
Grant's grade was an A.